Monday, February 29, 2016

Not your typical love story: part 4 / and then we lived happily ever after.

Okay, so I'm aware this story is getting painfully long now. Like, I'm even getting sick of it and it's my life. And I know it's been over a week now since I posted part 3, but finishing things I start has always been a problem of mine. (Good example was our wedding story that I never finished part 3/3...) I keep sit down to write, then I get up, and then I sit down again, and then I get up again. I meant to finish this yesterday and then I did every single thing possible to avoid doing it, so today it's going live, no matter what. I tried to keep this last part pretty short & sweet though (as best I can, I like my words..), so let's just get it done with shall we?! (Plus you already know how it ends up, so no surprises really.)

So John graduated in early May, on my birthday actually but I was on vacation with my family so I wasn't there to watch him. (Although I will always wish that I was because he put "David Hasselhoff" on his name card and that's what they called when he walked across the stage lol...)

I did however wake up to this text from him that is just SO CUTE, IS IT NOT??? (Even though I'm pretty sure he was still drunk from the night before lol.) Like I kept saying in part 3, we were SOOO in love. I'll have to remember to ask John if he's happier than anything in the world now, haha.

(Not even a little bit sober lol. ^)

So now life was picking up and getting pretty real for the both of us. Where I left off in part 3, I had just started a new job, the best job I'd ever had up until that point and gotten a new apartment with my sister. (Like signed a year long lease...) And now that John had graduated it would only be a matter of time before he would go on and start his new grown-up adult life. We didn't really talk too much about what would happen once he left, and up until this point I kind of just ignored it because it didn't seem like it would ever really happen. Remember when I said that I used to think John was lying about things because his life just seemed so unreal sometimes? Well I think this was one of those times. All this time whenever he would talk about this job that he already had, I would be like, "uh-huh sure." He finally had to show me his offer letter, and I was like.."oh." I REALLY did not want him to go. I honestly remember thinking though that he didn't have to take it. I remember thinking (but not ever suggesting out loud) that he could always stay and maybe I could get him a job at the bank with me. (I can't even believe this now lol.) And I do remember suggesting that maybe he could take the entire summer off and start his job in the fall (to buy me some time to convince him to stay lol). Now I can say without a doubt that moving away was the best thing I ever did, but back then I really had no desire to leave. I was fine where I was. I liked it. (It was also all that I really knew.) But John already had his heart set on leaving and there was no way he was going to stick around. (Always has been way more adventurous than me.)

For the next few weeks he was kind of in limbo, going back and forth with his recruiter about where they were going to send him. At first there was a high possibility of Toronto, which was actually cool with me because then he would only be about a 4 hours away. During this time John was also going through this really intense background investigation (it's normal for construction, sometimes you have to have this special clearance to work on certain jobs), and he had to have all these references so I remember meeting up with this FBI guy (seriously, not joking) at a Bigby coffee shop and it was the craziest thing ever. It was so funny because it was the first time I had to describe our relationship to anyone else, and while he was interviewing me he was like making a timeline on a piece of paper and he'd ask me questions like "where did John live then?" and I'd be like, "uh, in the blue apartment?" (Like, I was drunk for three years, I don't know guy.) Anyways, the Toronto thing fell through and then one day I was sitting at work and I get a text from John - "Omaha. June 12th." And I swear my heart stopped for a second. I knew Omaha was a high possibility since his company (at the time, not now) was headquartered there, but it was just soo far away. 4 hours was doable, 12 hours was not.

So it all happened very quickly. He leased an apartment online. He bought some knifes. (Lol, I always think this part was so funny, you'll see.) I had ZERO time off at work, but I somehow convinced my boss to let me take a Friday off so I could go with him to help move. (I probably cried.) I think John started to get a little sad now that it was happening, but he was excited too. But also not overly excited because Omaha was actually his last choice, haha. We still didn't really decide what we were going to do about us, we just went with a "let's see what happens" kind of attitude.

^ The weekend before John moved. I was actually kind of mad because we had planned on hanging out at his parents house together just the two of us, we even bought all this food to make dinner and then somehow we ended up in Detroit and then some rooftop club where we were drinking these god awful peppermint things, then John threw this shirt in the garbage and his Mom ended up picking up about 12 of us in her car...and yeah, it turned out to be quite the going-away party for him, haha. I think I just wanted to take all of the time I had left with him to myself, so I was being selfish (and boring) but it was fun. And I think it made John happy.

So, moving on....the drive to Omaha was pretty uneventful. John and I drove together, and his parents followed. We tried to drive through the night on Thursday, but everyone got tired so we stopped to sleep and when we got to his apartment the next day, I was like...."what." It was so bad. (I've written about this apartment before so *spoiler alert* I do end up moving in, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.) I was like, "this is Omaha...THIS is where you're going to live?" I'll just say that I was not impressed, haha. But it was just (supposed to be) for him, he could walk to work and he only signed a 6 month lease, so it wasn't really that bad...

Okay so this ^ was the apartment. He moved in with just a mattress, a tv, two tables and this pink recliner. (That's why I find it so funny that he went out and bought this nice fancy knife set for his new fancy apartment lol.) I actually loved this pink chair though. I kind of wish we still had it, but *spoiler alert* this apartment got mold and it was ruined...

(I think I captioned this "these kids need some sleep" lol.)

We stayed for the weekend to get him settled in, check out the city and try to have some fun. Once we got out and about it didn't seem so bad. (No offense, some people might love Omaha, we just didn't really.) There was this cute little art festival going on that we walked through, we had some good food, went out for drinks, it wasn't a bad time. On Saturday night when we got back to Johns apartment (his parents stayed at a hotel), we ordered pizza and sat around eating it on the floor and I was like so happy, but at the same time, so, so sad. On Sunday we all had breakfast then went back to Johns to put this desk together that he got (okay so he got a desk too lol), and once it was done that meant it was time to go and I finally started crying. But not too bad. Johns Mom was worse like hugging him and saying, "just come home" haha. (He is the baby of the family lol.) I just sort of silently cried because I didn't want to make a big scene, and I was trying to tell myself it would be okay. I knew I wasn't really going to totally understand how I felt until after we left.

John had made me a little bed in the backseat earlier that morning because he knew I would be upset and wanted me to sleep the whole way home. (Also made sure I had plenty of water because he always thinks I'm going to get dehydrated when I cry lol.) But really we just texted back and forth most of the time. He sent me this ^ and I hope he's not embarrassed that I'm sharing it (even though I'm the one whose been embarrassing myself with this entire love story lol), but we just couldn't imagine not being together now that we were. I think that once John moved we became more serious because we had to be. There were really only two choices now: break up or commit 110% to this thing. So we went all in.

If we were obsessed with each other before, then we were really obsessed now. We were constantly texting during the day and then facetiming for hours every night. And we started doing this thing where every morning we would send each other a selfie so we knew what each other looked like that day, haha. (I had definitely been crying in this one.) And then I'd make these little collages side by side so it was like we were next to each other. (HAHAHA, embarrassing myself now or what?)

And we finally made it Facebook official, haha. This was how scared John was, he wouldn't be my Facebook boyfriend this whole time because I'm pretty sure he didn't want to potentially go through a Facebook breakup after he left. (Is there anything more embarrassing?) But like I just said, him moving away just showed us just how much we weren't going to break up. Almost immediately we started making a longer-term plan. I'd save money to move out there with him when my lease was up in April (10 months...) and in the mean time, we'd plan visits back and forth. But tickets to/from Detroit/Omaha were expensive. Like, $500. (Maybe they aren't now, but they were then.) So we thought spreading out the visits would be the best idea, so FIVE weeks later, I flew out to visit for the first time. It was the longest time we've ever spent apart (still).

It was hard. All that was on my mind was John. I remember 4th of July going over to my Dads house and I couldn't stop crying because I just missed John so much I couldn't have any fun. I just didn't want to do anything really. I started to get really serious about trying to save money and I even changed my schedule to a second shift because I made more money and they catered in dinner every night so I figured I could save money on food. I remember buying the "Great Value" brand everything at Walmart. I ate bagels for dinner like every night. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, I love bagels.) I wouldn't go anywhere on the weekends. Although, I didn't really want to go anywhere anyways because I was so sad.

I don't want this to get super boring right now where I describe every little thing we did, so I'll try to keep this part brief. Finally, I flew out to visit him. It was a really short weekend trip. Like Friday night to Sunday afternoon. I remember crying and crying when the cab came to get me on Sunday and I seriously considered just staying.

A few weeks later I flew out again, and this time I really had Z-E-R-O time off so I had to get creative. We wanted to make it a longer weekend, so Thursday morning I called in sick with "the flu" and then hopped a flight to Omaha, haha. (And obviously "the flu" was going to buy me Friday off too.) John had to work both days, but it was still more time together and made the price of the flight worth it. And this is just such a cute story about John so I have to tell - so the cab dropped me off at his office, where he instructed me to go up to his floor and ask the receptionist for the keys to his car because he was in meetings all day. So she handed me his keys, and then a bunch of hand drawn maps that he had made for me. I wish I would have kept them because it was just the nicest thing ever. One was how to get to from his work to his apartment and another map was to a sandwich shop where he wanted to me to walk and get lunch. And then he left me like $60 for the sandwich shop, haha? If any story could explain the way John takes care of me, that's the one. He still treats me like this.

I hate this picture of me, but it's Johns favorite. From lunch that weekend before I had to go home. I think I had been crying, like usual haha.

So long story short, there was no way we were going to wait 10 months. We're the kind of couple that needs to be together. Like, even now I don't have to necessarily travel with John, but we choose to do it this way because we're better together. And at this time, he'd been gone less than two months and we'd already spent $1,000+ on flights and we couldn't continue doing that every 3-5 weeks. So we decided to speed things up. I went home and told my family that I was going to move to Omaha now. They were all really cool and understanding about it, my parents have always been the best at letting me make my own choices and not telling me what to do, but even I knew it probably wasn't the "smartest" thing to do. (If I cared about that kind of thing, but I don't.) But I had to do what was best for us. So I put my two weeks in at my job, worked out a deal with my sister about the apartment (a much longer story goes with this, but it all worked out in the end), found a new home for my cat (did I mention I used to have a cat?), said goodbye to a handful of people and that was it. It really was kind of crazy because we had only been "technically" dating for about 6 months, but that's just how we do things.

So August 23rd, a little over two months after John moved, I packed up my car and left to join him in Omaha. (And his parents, because no one lets me drive long distances alone and it was an excuse for them to visit him lol.) I moved into that crappy little apartment. Two weeks later I started a new job at a new bank. (I actually interviewed for it over the phone in my car on my lunch break before I moved lol.) Three months later we moved across the street into a nicer apartment. Then eventually we decided we wanted to make some changes so we quit our jobs, said goodbye to Nebraska and that part of our life, and left. That was probably the point in our relationship where we knew we were in this together for life.

(^ A full year before we even talked seriously about getting married lol. I love screenshots.)

Then we traveled, moved again, got married, moved around some more, got a puppy, and then here we are now - living "happily ever after."Just kidding, we're just living. But we're happy.

I think every love story is different and unique, and of course I'm biased but I just love ours so much. As nervous and embarrassed I was to write this whole thing out, it's really made me realize just how special it is to me. It started out slow, taking us years to figure out what the connection between us meant, and then once we knew everything clicked into place and it happened so fast. I have to believe that everything happens for a reason, and even though sometimes I hate that John knows every single one of my bad secrets, I wouldn't take any of our story back because it's what got us here. I will tell anyone who will listen, marry your best friend.And I hope I didn't make anyone like throw up with all this sappiness, but I can't help it. It wasn't all perfect and of course I'm leaving a ton out, but I'm just the kind of person who loves to figure out why things happen the way they do and I'm always amazed and grateful looking back on things to see how they lead to other things. It's all connected, you know? (Or maybe I'm just way into my own head now.)

Anyways, thanks for reading and letting me carry on WAY too long about this. I think I'm done talking about myself for a while. Back to talking about my dog again, haha.

8 comments:

NOOO MY FAVORITE SERIES IS OVER! Hahaha. I loved reading this! I think I love it so much because our story is pretty unconventional too, and I seriously never in a million years would've thought we'd end up together when we first met. Also I don't think you ramble...but I totally ramble in my blog posts (and comments...like this one) so maybe that's why. Haha.

PLEASE write yours someday! It was really time consuming but I'm glad I did it. Even if I shut this blog down someday I'll keep that to read back when I'm old. And I think it's fun to read about other people so I think everyone's nosy like I am lol. And thank you for thinking I don't ramble. I feel like my posts are always so long, I try to do shorter ones but I just can't lol.

So I DID time it correctly - I got to read all four posts in one day :) and this one made me tear up (especially the part about him drawing you the maps and how you said he still takes care of you like that). Oh my god, I just love your story! The part about him saying he was Hasselhoff too - hilarious! My husband just came into the room I'm sitting in and was like, "what are you doing?" I said, "almost crying to a beautiful story of a blogger I follow." WELL DONE, Morgan!

I think it's so nice to hear how much you appreciate John. And I'm sure he thinks the same of you, too. Sometimes I am so thankful of who I married that I actually get emotional about it. I think that's the key to a lasting marriage, though - truly appreciating the person you have married.

Thanks for letting me "listen" to your story. It really was beautiful!

AWW thank you! I feel bad you had to read them all at once haha! They were so long. I really wouldn't have been offended if no one read them, it's just something I wanted to do. I like to read other peoples so I figured I'd do my own. I think you're right about that last part. We're always very thankful for each other and I think not taking that person for granted is a big part of it. I'm not an expert or anything, but I'm also like HUGE on the being friends part more than anything too. It's like the best foundation we ever could have had, even though it was messy and took a long time.

awwwww i love this! KC and I used to do the selfie thing as well each day.. except he'd wake up as I was going to bed and I'd wake up towards the end of his day. It was weird, but hey, you gotta do what works. KC and I only spent 4 or 5 days together when we first met, and then I visited like 6 or 7 times (for a month at a time) over like 2 years and then i moved here. it's not the same as you all of course, but we are definitely 'untraditional' as well, and i dig it. way better than normal and boring or 'smart' ;)

Yes I love that! My risk was not nearly as big as yours but sometimes you just have to go for it right?! I could have never done long distance for that long, it really got so boring sometimes the "what'd you do today" conversations. I mean we're still kind of boring now at the end of the day but it's different lol.